Patent GB-656828-A (GB)
Title: Stock distributing systems
IPC: B65G1/137
Filed: 1946-01-24
Abstract: 656,828. Checking receipts. SKILLMAN, T. S. Jan. 24, 1946, No. 19245/49. Convention date, Feb. 24, 1945. Divided out of 666,771. [Class 106 (i)] [Also in Group XVIII] A system for dispensing articles comprises electrical selecting means, including articleissuing devices each containing articles of one kind, controlled electrically by a selector device from a remote station for causing an article to be issued from any article-issuing device and an electrically operated value indicator or recorder and connections between the electrical selecting means and the value indicator or recorder which cause the transmission of indications representing the value of an article to the indicator or recorder by the selective operation of the electrical selecting means. Each row of a number of rows of keys is associated with a group of stock bins and in each stock bin is a conveyer on which articles of one kind are stored and which is set in motion to convey articles out of the bin by the operation of a release mechanism. To select an article of one kind in a group of bins two keys in the associated row are pressed in succession. The first key operates one of a group of relays, each of which in turn controls another group of release relays, and at the same time one of a series of magnets 33, 34 , .. 35 in the value recorder, Fig. 4, is operated, since each is electrically connected to a contact closed by a key when first pressed. Each key is numbered and the magnets operate printers, and on the first pressing of a key the first of two digits, corresponding to the key number is printed. The relay operated by the key closes contacts in the circuits of the release relays it controls without completing their circuits and changes over contacts in the key circuits to connect the keys to the release relays instead of to the relays in the controlling group. When the second key is pressed it completes the circuit of one of the release relays whose circuits have been partly closed by the first key and that relay operates with the result that the conveyer in the selected bin is put in motion. At the same time one of a series of magnets 36, 37 ... in another row in the value recorder is operated, since each is electrically connected to a contact closed by the second key, so printing the second digit. When an article has been carried to the end of its conveyer it falls off it and in so doing knocks a lever which opens contacts in the circuit holding the release relay and so stops the conveyer, and this operation of the release relay operates a shift mechanism 49 which shifts the card in the printer up one line and so prepares it for the next entry. A cancel key opens the circuit holding the group of controlling relays and so cancels the operation and also operates a magnet 50 to cancel the entry in the value recorder as well as to move on the card. A third row of printing magnets 42, 43 ... 44, totalling twenty for prices up to twenty shillings, and a fourth row 45 ... 48 totalling twelve for pence are converted to terminate on a jumpering frame and every stock bin has two contacts (e.g. 39, 40) connected to the other side of the jumpering frame so that when the lever already mentioned is knocked by an article falling off the conveyer it closes the contacts and the magnets connected to them (e.g. 42, 48) are energized and print the value of the released article in shillings and pence. The value recorder has registers of any wellknown type whereby the costs are added and the total printed on the card before its release. A " batch complete " key operates a magnet 53 to register the total and release the card. Specification 656,829, [Group XVIII], is referred to.